


dragon's blood

by murgamurg



Series: things wont change until we do [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 03:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8085808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murgamurg/pseuds/murgamurg
Summary: She takes the bottle from Kolgrim. He can see the steam rise from her hand when it touches her palm.





	

**Author's Note:**

> unedited, unbeta'd.

She takes the bottle from Kolgrim. He can see the steam rise from her hand when it touches her palm. Leliana and Wynne bristle at his side; he didn't think Wynne was remotely capable of anything like _bristling_.

"I'm going to trust you have something tricky up your sleeve," he offers to diffuse the tension.

She can't poison Andraste’s ashes. And she doesn't -- to his great surprise. Of course, he trusted her. He knew she wouldn't. Yet in the back of his mind, something is _wrong_.

Like a question. Like, she'd been considering it.

On their way to meet the Dalish he watches her. She always keeps it in her pocket, just like his worry token. In the same way she's always touching it, like a reassurance when she's tired, when she’s stressed. He's not even sure she knows she's doing it. But he knows when the bottle is in her pocket.

He can feel it sometimes. The magic, glowering there.

He finds her looking at it one night. She's leaning over it, gazing into the depths of it like some precious trinket. The fire reflecting in her dark eyes.

He takes it from her, places it away in the grass, kisses her in the hopes that she'll forget about it. Takes her to bed, so that she'll only think of him and not it, that thing that seems to occupy the back of her mind, every sideways glance.

But then the Landsmeet happens. He loves her but he becomes King instead, and their relationship becomes strained as any other.

She goes off to Amaranthine. He remains in Denerim.

Three years later he sees her again, and suddenly she is different. They have exchanged letters of course, and he has not forsaken her for all their distance. But seeing her here is different-- she contains a fervor he does not recognize, she vibrates with some kind of power. Her dark eyes seem even darker somehow, as if black could become blacker than itself.

He must leave again, of course. The visit is short and diplomatic, but before he leaves he manages to lock them both in a room and have it out. His hands on her hips and hers stuttering for purchase across his broad shoulders. Her gasps and sighs a symphony to his starved ears.

When her tongue traces the line of his jugular he leans back to kiss her. But her eyes are dulled by something wholly unlike ardor.

There are no pupils to be found. Only the blackness he saw earlier, swallowing be where her eyes should be, leaching into her cheekbones and settling there like a spider’s claws.

He can't let her go, he can't-- and after he pulls away as if he was burned, the scalding memory of the heat of her blood under his palms.

He looks at her, and she knows he's seen by the way she rubs her palms across her eyes.

"What have you done, Tab," he asks in a hushed whisper.

She laughs, bitter and sharp like a razor. "I drank it. I found this book, explaining how it works and I--"

She chokes on her words, and his jaw clenches. The door slams behind him when he leaves, and he wants to retch round the corner.

His heart thuds in his ears, blood singing when he thinks of her, and he doesn't know if he can see her again. 


End file.
